Glitterati
by Nagia
Summary: If the Don ordered it, Vincent Valentine would break his own knees and smile. Toothily. Yuffie, on the other hand, might just do anything to kill him... 1920's AU.


**Glitterati**

* * *

All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away again

She dreams a champagne dream

Strawberry surprise, pink linen and white paper

Lavender and cream

—Fuel, "Shimmer"

* * *

(i; all that shimmers in this world)

The waves lap against the beach at Costa Del Sol; overhead, the stars glitter, reflected in the water. Foam strikes the sand and falls away again. On a promontory of grasses and sandy earth, a lighthouse blares out its sweeping strobe, providing warning and signs of safe harbor.

On another promontory, far, far away from the adobe town, an expensively painted villa crouches. Most of its inhabitants studiously ignore the activity on the beach and in the beachside town; only dark-dressed men with ties and guns pay anything below the hill any mind. And they are tight-lipped sentinels to whom nobody pays any attention.

Inside the villa, everything shines. Wineglasses and champagne flutes glitter. Necklaces and earrings and bracelets sparkle. Sequined and satin dresses sparkle. All the silverware has been polished to weaponized brilliance. The brass in all the rooms—all the metal everywhere, even the silvery steel revolvers—shines beautifully. Eye catching.

Three people outstrip the rest.

Don Corneo, of course, is at the centre of all the attention, and he shines ruddy in the flickering lights. His tuxedo is white, his tie clip is gold, he wears a heavy golden wedding band on his left ring finger, and heavy golden horn-rimmed spectacles. They aren't prescription; he wears them because he can. His too-red lips are set in an eternal laugh and those dangerous eyes are always sparkling with amusement nobody wants to think too hard about. Behind him, a nameless, faceless nephew holds the leads of two enormous dogs, Apps and Rapps. Their collars are so heavy with gems that a stupid thief might be tempted to take those first.

On the Don's arm hangs a young moll from Wutai. His newest _comare_. Exactly where he picked her up, nobody is sure. Nobody asks, either, because she isn't as petite as other Wutaian women—especially in those vicious-looking silvery heels—and he lets her carry her sharp, shiny knives everywhere she goes. Her silvery-white dress is altogether too short for a married woman, given the illusion of decency by a long white fringe. A silver and diamond collar complete the glitter. She, too, wears a heavy gold wedding band. Her wedding band and her skin color are the only gold she wears. Down to her eyes, she's a creature of black and silver.

Black and silver also describe the only other man in the room who dares to stare after her. He's an up-and-coming hitman, the Don's favorite enforcer. He'd break his own knees and smile if the Don told him to. Toothily. Like the security, he wears a somber black suit and keeps a polished silvery revolver on his right thigh. It's an impressive gun—one that draws multiple stares. In all other ways, he fades into the background, quietly sipping at a single flute of champagne and pretending that he isn't destined to suffer the Don's wrath.

Inside, caterers with stars in their eyes circle like the predators they very much aren't. Outside, the waves continue to crash against the shore, reflecting the night sky for any who might care to watch.

* * *

(ii; a champagne dream)

Yuffie Corneo, nee Kisaragi, finally drew away from the elbow of the man she married in a fashion that may or may not have been under duress. She was attractive enough that Corneo wasn't likely to trust other men around her, and she wasn't clear enough on her grasp of the language used in Costa Del Sol to speak with the other Mafia wives. So she simply grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing caterer, then quickly grabbed another, unconsciously tapping her engagement and wedding rings against a flute's stem.

After a wink toward her glasses and a decidedly naughty smile, one of the stoic security guards, an experienced knee-breaker and life-taker, opened the balcony door for her, closing it and following her out. She caught sight of a long tail of dark hair and smiled to herself.

He was always following her. She'd noticed him weeks ago.

"Champagne? Or are you not allowed it when you're on security?" she asked, or tried to ask. It was hard to make herself understood; men tended to ignore her, because she was female and talking, and women tended to throw dirty looks her way and ignore her, too.

Maybe she just hadn't gotten this whole Mafia wife thing.

"I'm not on security," he admitted, accepting the glass of champagne from her left hand.

Yuffie took a step forward, laid her elbows on the balcony's marble railing. Beyond the balcony, the Mar del Sol crashed against the rocky, sandy shore. The stars in the sky shone like the materia she'd coveted as a child, like the diamond glittering on her finger.

"If you're not on security," she found herself saying, fingernails tap-tap-tapping her curiosity against the bell of the champagne flute, "then why did you follow me?"

But Vincent Valentine didn't say anything. He simply took a slow sip from his champagne, as if he was afraid of it, as if he was afraid to be there, on that balcony. With her.

Yuffie looked out to sea, suddenly wanting to see how far she could throw the champagne glass. She wanted it to tinkle and break, wanted to watch glass shards fly, fall, sparkle in the sand. Like sharp diamonds or ice shards or teeth, hidden away but still deadly, liable to cut somebody's feet.

She said nothing, watching the Mar del Sol and the glittering stars in her empty champagne glass. There was nothing to say anymore, not if he wasn't going to tell her why he followed her around. It was stupid and dangerous. For him as well as her—if Corneo ever suspected she had sex with someone else, her life was forfeit, and whoever her supposed

And she'd worked so hard to stay amusing even this long. To stay useful.

If she could just last one more month.

Vincent took another sip of his champagne and swallowed, stood next to her and stared at the ocean with her. And remained silent, the sea breeze whipping that hair around until he looked like the men from her memories of home.

Finally, with those dark, dark eyes staring out at the dark, star-spangled ocean, his mouth opened and he spoke. "Corneo wants me to be your bodyguard."

She allowed those words to sit in the air, stand on the balcony with them. There was almost nothing to say to them. They were true; everybody knew Vincent would have cut out his own tongue if Corneo told him to. That was what being an enforcer was all about, really. No way Vincent would ever dare to sleep with the Don's wife, and no way Vincent would ever allow harm to come to her.

Except. "Bullshit. That's not why, Vincent Valentine. I'm Wutaian, not stupid."

But it was the only answer he could give her and so he said nothing, clenched one gloved hand on the marble railing and sipped at the drink she was pretty sure he didn't want anyway. Beneath him, beach grasses rustled in the wind.

And Yuffie began to understand: when she was not with Corneo, she was alone. And when she _was_ with Corneo, it'd be better to be alone.

* * *

(iii; and white paper)

Vincent Valentine was not a clean person. He had never been one to curb the destructive urges of the invariably short-lived Dons of Costa Del Sol—and their brides—so he merely watched as the newest _comare_ flung her wineglass as far and as hard as she could, over the balcony. Forty feet below, glass shattered. She stayed where she was, staring into the darkness or the distance, and then turned around, flung the balcony doors open, and went back inside.

He didn't move from his spot. He wasn't a clean person. The glass shards on the beach, burying themselves in the sand, catching the tide on their sharp little fingertips, meant nothing to him. He was simply an enforcer, a killer; he'd dirtied up his soul and he'd dirtied up his mind and his hands were filthy, still filthy, always bloody.

He set the glass aside and tugged at the black leather gloves that hid his hands from sight. Especially the left hand, _el mano del diavolo_—the hand he'd written with until his grade school teachers had made him write with his right. The hand he still preferred to shoot with. Had to make sure those hands were covered. Couldn't let anybody see them.

But the gloves were tight, fitting perfectly. As they always did. He'd had them made special. He never had to take them off if he didn't want to.

He turned to stare at the balcony doors. He didn't want to go back inside, to the laughter and smiles. He was the gritty, greasy, bloody underside to the Mafia's dealings, he was all its sicknesses embodied. And inside that room, the sparkly overside, the shimmering glitterati who smiled and laughed and danced their ways through life, the people he killed for, were circling around each other like wolves around lambs.

He didn't belong with them.

And _she_ didn't belong with them. Somewhere between predator and prey, easy in her silver, outshining the glitterati with all their gold. In that room, she was probably laughing, puzzled and flirtatious and alone, destined to die as surely as he had been destined to love her at least a little.

He looked back at his hands, up at the stars. In the privacy of his mind, he laughed at himself.

He'd always been so captivated by the things he couldn't touch.

* * *

(iv; fade away again)

The Don, Achille Corneo, dies in a polished, glimmering theatre beside his glittering bride and their shimmering companions. Her cat's eyes gleam with something nobody wants to identify, caught somewhere between tears and relief. As any bride of any suddenly dead Don would be.

The bodyguards naturally hurry her out of the theatre, away from the opera everybody knows she didn't understand. They all give her those privately understanding looks; their faces soften as they speak to her in soft tones, not harsh ones, but she clings to one of them, shakes and trembles, doesn't even look at the man she's clinging to.

The Don's personal bodyguard stares hard at her with something that might be suspicion and might be jealousy. Or it might just be his usual evaluating stare; nobody with half a brain would try to guess at Vincent Valentine's thoughts. He keeps them tucked away where nobody is allowed to touch them, or even see them.

For once, the Don's wife doesn't shine in the low lights. She is not a creature of silver, and she was never gold, and now they're all staring at the dog collar of diamonds around her throat, at the way her fingers tremble in the jacket of the bodyguard whose name she probably doesn't even know.

Even _if_ the death of the Don was natural, she's due congratulations on outliving him. And if a short, silent, unreadable glance passes between the Don's wife and his bodyguard, nobody else mentions it. It's just not worth the trouble.

* * *

END


End file.
